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Creepy ex-coworkers

Posted by mwelch November 27, 2007 02:14 PM

Source: InformationWeek

To explain "how your creepy ex-coworkers will kill Facebook," Cory Doctorow suggests a new law roughly based on Brooks's Law which states, "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." (So, so true!) So Doctorow cites what he calls Boyd's Law (named after Danah Boyd a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society and an expert on social networks). Namely, "Adding more users to a social network increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance."

Surely this has or will happen to you. For "every long-lost chum who reaches out to [you] on Facebook," there's another person who you don't want to be around asking to be your buddy. So Doctorow isn't worried that Facebook will take over the net. He says the more people that join Facebook, the greater the chance that Boyd's Law will strike. And "when that happens, poof, away you go - and Facebook joins SixDegrees, Friendster and their pals on the scrapheap of net.history."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203573

tags facebook, social media, social networking
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